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Request for Sky news: Polygamous working, what do you think about it?

ended 03. December 2025

Sky news request: 

Polygamous working is a growing problem. It is when an employee deliberately conceals the fact they are working two or more full-time jobs. Sky is working on a story about it.

  • What is the law surrounding working two full-time jobs at the same time, is it illegal? What can businesses do when they find an employee is doing this?
  • Do you have any experience of this happening in your business? Did you catch anyone working another full-time job? Any anecdotes would be welcome.
  • Why do you think polygamous working is on the rise? Work from home? Any other reasons?

Responses by this afternoon.

1 responses from the Newspage community

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Editor
Kate Underwood
Founder & Chief People Strategist at Kate Underwood HR and Training
If your team need a mouse jiggler to survive the month, something has gone very wrong.

Cost of living pressure means more people quietly stacking a second job on top of a full time one and trying to be “online” in two places at once. It might look clever on social media. In real life it wrecks the Working Time Regulations and your duty of care in one go.

Those rules exist for a reason. They limit average weekly hours and protect rest breaks because tired people make more mistakes, have more accidents and burn out faster. If someone is effectively doing two jobs, they are not getting proper rest, whatever their Teams status says.

From a small business point of view, this is a big red flag. You cannot just shrug and pretend you did not know. You need to ask about second jobs, keep an eye on total hours and have grown up conversations about money and wellbeing. If someone is working 60 to 70 hours a week just to keep the lights on, something will give, and it will not be pretty.